You've been to one ceremonial groundbreaking, you've been to them all, right?

Which is why Thursday's event for a new campus that Netflix will occupy was a lot of fun. Instead of flinging ceremonial dirt, city officials and company executives —and a whole lot of employees — got to take a crack at tearing down one of the existing business park's decades-old tilt-up buildings.

Even yours truly got into the act, after a little hammer-swinging instruction from a Devcon Construction expert. (See slideshow.)

That is not normally how demolition work is done, Devon President Gary Filizetti told me, but this is not your ordinary project. The 242,500-square-foot first phase, slated for completion in the first half of 2015, had more turns than a DVD spinning at double speed — so much so, some observers wondered if Netflix Inc. would stay in the town where it grew up.

But it's now full-steam ahead for the campus project, and city leaders, developers and Netflix execs were all smiles on Thursday.

Netflix CFO David Wells noted the company grew up in Los Gatos. From a humble space on University Avenue, it has blossomed to take about 250,000 square feet of leased offices that house roughly 1,000 workers.

"Los Gatos has been the home of Netflix since 2000," he told a crowd that included more than 100 Netflixers and city leaders. "Hopefully there's no question anymore as to our intent. We look forward to the next phase of our growth here."

Netflix signed a long-term lease with LG Business Park LLC for the campus's first two buildings. The project is a joint venture of Sand Hill Property Co. and the Carlyle Group.

As a ceremony, Thursday's event doesn't actually mark the start of work — that actually happened several weeks ago when crews knocked down two structures. Six are left to go before vertical construction occurs.

But developer John Shenk said the goal was to mark the recent milestones and what lies ahead.

"There's still a lot of work to do, but it's important to celebrate the progress," he said. "It's a wonderful day for Los Gatos. We're finally there."

In remarks before a crowd of Netflix workers, Los Gatos Mayor Barbara Spector first congratulated the company on its recent Emmy wins, and then she made a pitch to have her favorite Netflix original programming return with new content ASAP.

"You have made Los Gatos the original content streaming center of the world, so thank you for that," she said. "We are looking forward to the innovation that this very creative company has done and will continue to do."

After the remarks, officials grabbed hard hats, goggles and hammers, then took some swings at the wall of one of the doomed buildings. Employees then got into the act, too. By the end of the event, the corner of the building was a little worse for wear.

Knocking it down would take an awful long time with this technique. Actual demolition? About a week, Filizetti said. Most of the concrete will be ground down and reused in construction of the new structure.

Take a look at the day's fun in the photos. Oh, and thanks to Natalie Ladd, of Natalie Ladd Photography, for the pictures.